The Emergence and Function of the Australian Intelligence Community

Abstract

The Australian Intelligence Community (AIC) emerged in the Commonwealth executive branch of state throughout the 20th century, methodically reconfiguring in response to royal commission and government review recommendations. The AIC’s structure continues to be altered today in the face of ‘an increasingly complex security environment’. Such reconfiguration has been necessary in order to create a more effective and accountable AIC that serves the executive government by protecting Australian security and safety interests. Today, the AIC agencies work within a largely legislative framework, informed by liberal ends and values that balance individual liberty and privacy against communal security and peace. The AIC consists of six agencies today; the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the Australian Secret Intelligence Organisation (ASIS), the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), the Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO), the Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation (AGO) and lastly the Office of National Assessments (ONA). This essay will briefly outline the development of the AIC over the last 100 years, and then discuss in detail why it emerged in the way that it did. Particular emphasis will be placed on the changes that occurred as a result of the Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security (1974-1977), the Protective Security Review (1979) and the Royal Commission on Australia’s Security and Intelligence Agencies (1984). The essay will then proceed to analyse the ways in which the AIC has, and hasn’t, served the nation. It will discuss arguments made in Royal Commissions, reviews, criminal trials and wider media, and critically evaluate reasons for and against the utility of the AIC.